Supplier evaluation services

One of the very clear requirements of ISO 9001:2000 standard is regarding the evaluation, selection and monitoring of suppliers. Having valuable suppliers is a key element for every company in terms of quality of provided products or services, also for reduction for cost of organization, implicitly maximization of profits. This process related to suppliers is not a simple one, nor limited in time.

For a better understanding of the role of suppliers for every company, let’s look at the following example. Assumptions for this chart are: all supplier lines offer to organization the same product and the length of each chain is equal.

Suppliers 1 and 3 are positioned in chains of supplier where for all of them exist quality management systems. Such existence is a condition, not enough but mandatory for supplying a good product to the next client. The case of supplier 2 shows that its suppliers are posi- tioned on chains with weak links. Even if suppliers 2-1-1 and 2-1-2 have the capability of providing agreed level of quality, because of the absence of QMS at supplier 2-1, supplier 2 is not in a very good position of supplying what the organization is wanting. However QMS which exist at supplier 2 is focus also on extensive receiving inspections, which means an increased cost. The QMS may provide a good product; the cost of it is almost sure higher than its competitors.

A question appear: which of suppliers 1 and 3 should be used by organization? The answer is given by the evaluation of each supplier performance. The arsenal of assessing supplier’s capability of supplying products or services at a certain level of quality is pretty large. Several methods are used more often, like second party auditing (meaning audits at supplier’s premises), analyze of certain types of records (off-site supplier), certain benchmarking of supplied products, capabilities studies, etc.

Russell Romania (ISO 9000 Consulting) can help any organization who wishes to evaluate and select its suppliers based on valuable facts and data. Initial selection can be extended to periodical monitoring of their performances, to depict the trends of each supplier, so that to prevent reduction of quality of products or services offered by organization.

We want to remember you, once again that suppliers plays a critical role in the success or failure of every company. Indeed, it’s not the only factor, but still is...